Imagine what will happen when we get off gasoline completely

Author’s Note: This article includes several videos and text links
that are crucial in understanding the points raised. If possible please take the time to view them.

For a few years now, Bob Gordon and I have been preaching the urgent
need for the quick adoption of alternative fuels, energy and vehicles; not
so much because of the environmental issues, although that’s good
too, but because we believe that it is through alternative technologies
that the U.S. and world economies will find long term salvation.

In short, we need the products that will be borne by an alternative
fuel/energy revolution to provide millions of good paying jobs, along with
the revenue streams that will open and pump money (with real profits)
through the systems.

What we’re now seeing in America and abroad through the Cash For
Clunkers and Scrappage programs, in terms of stimulating the economy, are
just the smallest tip of the iceberg. Imagine what would happen if instead
of being incentivized to trade-in “gasoline-guzzler” 15 MPG
vehicles for 30 MPG vehicles, there were government incentives for trading
in gasoline-guzzling vehicles for vehicles that use no gasoline at all (or
at least no foreign oil), and they dispense very little or no harmful
emissions. We’d have a bonanza on our hands, the likes of which have
never been seen by any gold or silver or diamond or oil rush.

So the question is; what will it take to kick off the bonanza?

Well, mostly it will take only the will to get it done, because many of
the technologies and no - or low - emission fuels are already perfected:
CNG (compressed natural gas), propane, wind turbines, solar panels, and
ethanol made from plants we do not eat. You’ll notice that I
didn’t include electric in this list; that will come later.

In dozens of stories and editorials The Auto Channel has harped on the
fact that every major automaker in the world has and is producing vehicles
that run exclusively on CNG or propane. The OEMs have shown that they know
how to do it and that the vehicles run as well as any gasoline-powered
vehicles. They can be produced for the same costs, and they offer
additional advantages aside from environmental and fuel availability
benefits: for example, the engines require less servicing and significantly
fewer oil changes. But, incredibly, here in the U.S. the manufacturers act
like they never heard of these fuels. The only car company selling CNG cars
in America is Honda (the Civic GX), and their production run each year is
embarrassingly low – as if they were ashamed to build them.
Incidentally, Fiat, the Italian carmaker that now owns the Chrysler Group,
offers every one of their models in CNG-powered versions.

As for propane, the only one really championing propane-powered vehicles
in the U.S. is Roush Performance, the company best known for their enviable
racing achievements. Roush started with a Ford F-150 pickup truck and have
now added an F-250 pickup and E350 van (coming soon) to their lineup. In Europe,
Opel (which is still owned by GM) just announced an extensive lineup of dual gasoline and propane-powered
models.

Mysteriously, although Roush has proven that there is a market for
propane Fords, Ford has been reluctant to get on board and commit to
offering more vehicles and more models. Roush’s production
capabilities (or more accurately, their ability to convert Ford’s
products to propane) are impressive, but it’s a drop in the bucket
compared to Ford’s assembly capabilities.

CNG and propane powered engines emit far, far less pollutants than
gasoline and these fuels can be made almost entirely from gas reserves
found right here in North America. We don’t have to send hundreds of
billions of dollars each year to enemy nations, we don’t have to
inadvertently fund terrorist groups, and we don’t have to pay
attention to any loud-mouth two-bit dictators.

Turning to wind power and solar, the technologies and products for
both are no longer high school science projects. Residential solar panels
are relatively inexpensive and easy to install. Any home in any sun-belt
area can get 100% of their electrical energy from solar. The cost would be
recouped in about five year’s time. There is absolutely no reason why
every new home being built in a sun-belt state is not required to have
solar panels. Solar should also be mandated for all new commercial
construction to provide, at the very least, the power for lighting common
areas in the buildings.

Wind generators work…end of discussion. If the U.S., for example,
only gets a couple of percentage points of our national requirements from
wind power, it’s not because the wind generators are unavailable or
inefficient. It’s because Federal and State governments have not
mandated their use and provided the right-of-way needed to deliver the
electricity. We can put enough wind generators in New Mexico to power the
entire country…right now, today…at least in as fast as we can
buy and install them.

Then, there’s the fantastic potential of algae-produced
bio-diesel. Again, this technology graduated from high-school labs a long
time ago. Companies such as SunEco Energy are able to produce raw
“biodiesel” oil at about one-third the cost of raw petroleum
oil. And this oil can also be “grown” right here in the good
ole US of A. Just as important, every poor landlocked desert country around
the world can have algae biodiesel farms and become virtually energy
independent.

FINDING THE WILL
Just about one year ago, Barak Obama made his campaign energy speech*,
which talked about an aggressive plan to utilize alternative fuels and
ideas to do much of what I’ve described herein. But since acceding to
the throne, he has done nothing. He’s ignored CNG and propane,
forgotten about wind power and solar, and if he’s even heard about
algae biodiesel you would never know it. The only kind of commitment
he’s made is to say that by 2015 we will have one million electric
vehicles on the road.

For Obama to hang his hat on one million electric vehicles by 2015 is a
joke: it’s nothing more than a mere novelty. In normal years about 15
million new vehicles are sold in the United States. In five years (from
2010 to 2015), approximately 75 million new vehicles will be on the road.
This is in addition to around 200 million existing gasoline or diesel
powered vehicles. One million electric vehicles would be hopelessly
insignificant.

The presidential commitment should be to make sure that at least 25% of
all new vehicles on the road from 2010 to 2015 are 100% alternative fuel
powered, regardless of whether motion is fueled by electric, CNG, propane,
or rubber bands. Then, the Federal EPA and State governments should drop
their gasoline-protectionist rules against converting existing vehicles to
CNG, propane and ethanol, and incentives should be given out to ensure that another
ten or twenty million vehicles get converted over that time period. This
could give us 30 or 40 million non-gasoline, lower (or no) emission
vehicles on the road by 2015.

Then, if Obama and/or Congress mandated a plan like the one we suggested
last year* (that calls for the elimination of all new gasoline-powered
vehicles by 2014), by 2020 we could have as many as 150 million alternative
fuel vehicles on the road. That would amount to almost half of all
operating vehicles. This is how the depression can be ended. This is how to
bring financial prosperity back to America and the world. This is how to
create jobs. This is what we can achieve from the small lessons being
learned from the Cash For Clunkers program. All it will take is you
calling and writing and insisting that Obama and Congress get off the
gasoline-lobby gravy train and do something for the public instead of their
own purses.

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